Adolf Hitler's Childhood That Shaped Him

Adolf Hitler’s Childhood: The One That Shaped Him Adolf Hitler, the incarnation of pure evil, climbed to power in Germany rather quickly at the end of World War I. Coming of power, he had countless vendettas with their roots in direct relation with experiences from his youth. With his strategy to exact revenge, Hitler is at most to blame for World War II which commenced on September 1, 1939. During the war, German troops began establishing concentration camps for those deemed as “undesirables.” These camps quickly spread like wildfire as war prisoner rates and the Jewish population grew. His desire for vengeance against the Jews, the “undesirables,” and the rest of the world was not something he stumbled upon, but it had been brewing inside

An example of which is his father, Alois Hitler. Alois Hitler was born an illegitimate child, and is presumed to be Jewish, the main race Hitler targeted in Germany. He was publicly “an image of respectability” (Simkin), but his private life contrasted substantially. On January 7, 1885, Alois Hitler married his third wife who was also his second cousin, Klara Polzl. In John Simkin’s article, Hitler’s father is described as “a stern, distant, aggressive, and violent father” (Simkin). Studies show that Hitler’s father regularly beat him, sparking a hatred inside of him that only expanded. Hitler wrote about his father beating on numerous occasions. He once wrote about an encounter with his father, “‘After one day in Karl May that let the brave man give no sign of being in pain, I made up my mind not to let out any sound next time I was beaten...I counted every blow’… Afterwards he proudly told his mother: ‘Father hit me thirty-two times...and I did not cry’” (Simkin). Slowly, the beatings and abusiveness began making Hitler resent his father. He began expressing his hatred to his father stating “I never loved my father, but feared him” (Simkin). Many theorize that the abuse from his father directly contributed to his future hatred of the Jewish race, his ideology. Also, this directly began to shift Hitler’s decision making skills to more violent and

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Simkin, John. “Alois Hitler.” Spartacus Educational, Spartacus Educational, spartacus-educational.com/GERhitlerA.htm. Accessed on 28 March 2018.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “A Forgotten Suitcase: The Mantello Rescue

Mission.” Collections Highlights. www.ushmm.org/research/research-in-collections/collections-highlights/mantello-rescue- mission. Accessed on 28 March